So Quick
by rutan07
Summary: She started a fire to stay alive and ended up dead.  The short story of Peeta's first kill.


Rutan 10

Jonathan Rutan

English 504

Dr. Martin

September 20, 2011

**So Quick**

Her stomach didn't hurt as much anymore. The feel of fire that had cut through her guts was slowly starting to fade and she thought that maybe even her head was beginning to clear.

What had happened? She tried to remember but things were foggy. Was it something she ate? Had she fallen? Images skipped across her tightly closed eyes, some girl holding her hand and squeezing it hard, a lady she knew calling out her name as she stood in the center of a crowd and then how everyone had turned to look at her. Something bad had occurred, something she desperately needed to recall but no matter what she tried she just couldn't bring it up.

Maybe her head wasn't clearing after all, maybe if she opened her eyes that would be better but she was scared and she'd been that way for quite some time. She might not remember what was going on but the way her heart trembled, the way the air caught every once and a while so deeply in her throat she was sure that she was never going to take another breath, she understood fear with a smothering intimacy and she wanted to stay in the dark. She was so certain that if she looked around she wouldn't survive.

"Just use your mind Steph, think this out," a voice said, a soft whisper so gentle she could almost mistake it for a passing breeze.

The voice was familiar. She knew it as well as she knew her own name. Certain memories might walk away never to return but her father, and who she was, would always stick around. But she didn't want to look at him and so instead she kept as still as she could be with her eyes clasped shut.

"Daddy," she moaned. Her throat hurt too, a metallic burn that was as if something vital had sprung loose from deep within before it had rushed past her lips. "Daddy where are you? What's going on?"

"Just a game sweetie, only a game," her father replied.

"What game?"

"The most important one ever played. Don't you remember it, Steph?"

She hated it when he called her that. Ever since her first day at school, when the teacher had let them know that right at that moment almost every student everywhere was singing something special, she'd been Stephanie and he knew that. Really she was Stella Ellis Cotton but after almost an hour of music (some of it fun, some of it sad, one tune called the "Valley Song" somehow both at the same time) a girl named Poly Fringe caught her eye and said "Hey Stephanie," and that was that. Later when they were becoming fast friends, Poly would tell her that she just looked like a Stephanie no matter how much Stella tried to convince her otherwise. And after a while it stuck, Stephanie even having to admit that Poly had been right. That name did fit her better than anything else.

But her dad refused to use it. Once her mom had passed from the sickness he couldn't help himself and she couldn't stand it. How his eyes lit up in delight when he whispered Steph and she pursed her lips in annoyance. How he would laugh and tell her she was his special gift and as such he should be able to give her a special name. Others might have called her something she actually enjoyed but he gave a nickname to her nickname and never failed to utter it no matter how much she begged him not to.

It wasn't that she absolutely hated it. If she thought real hard she actually kind of liked his name for her in a small sort of way. Steph made her think of nights spent under covers as dark rain and hot lightning fell in giant fists and loud claps just outside her home. Having a tin roof barely kept nailed down, and thin walls that often wept whenever the rain lasted just a bit too long, never made such storms a joyous occasion. Many a rough evening had made her want to be more like her beagle Martin, cowardly and safe, warm and comfy under a table where she could have even more protection from the rain.

But instead she would stay with her covers, wrapped up in two threadbare sheets, and wait. Her father always worked the mid shifts, going to the plant an hour after she got back from school and coming home well after she should have been asleep. On any night when the sky shouted out its fury he tried all the harder to make it back a little early, exchanging shifts and begging any uniformed guard who would listen, but until he was beneath the same worn roof as she, Stephanie never could feel safe.

He would bust through their front door and call out his name for her. "Steph…I'm home Steph," he would yell as she sat up in bed with arms outstretched just waiting to be enveloped in the thick scent of dust and dyes and a hundred machines that ate electricity as if it were candy. She would melt in his embrace, trying not to shake too hard as he stroked her hair and whispered into her ear.

"You're home too," he would coo, it was always what he said when she was little, "and nothing bad can happen here. Home is where you're protected."

But as a child such words never truly calmed her. They were nice but she would only stop shaking after a good five minutes in his arms, his presence the single thing to ease her mind. He didn't understand how the walls cried and the roof bounced when he was gone. Home was nice but she couldn't buy that she was protected whenever she was alone.

Her daddy was her security and how he called her Steph simply made her feel even better. It was his special name for his special gift and often when she was very young just hearing it gave her more warmth then any two sheets.

But as she grew it began to grate on her nerves. She didn't know why, the part of her that still loved it hated every inch that glowered at her father whenever he dared to speak it aloud yet only when he was gone did she finally realize how great the name was.

"Do you remember the games," her father asked.

He was right above her, so close she was sure that if she opened her eyes she could stare into his face and see a long missed cow lick on the back of his head that never could be kept down. It sent tuffs of black high into the air and many a morning she had awoken to him making breakfast as he absentmindedly sent hand after hand up to tame what was wild and free. He never succeeded but she loved to watch while he doled out burnt bits of potato recooked from whatever hadn't been eaten the night before.

"Daddy, I'm hurt," she replied, "my stomach,"

"I know baby, I know," her father sighed, "but you need to remember, think about the games. Just open your eyes, it'll help, I know it will, just open your eyes and all your memories will come back."  
>But she didn't want to, she was still scared. And anyway it felt better to stay blind and breathe. Being brave meant looking at the world, it meant even more hurt and she couldn't do that just yet. Instead she clenched her eyes all the tighter and tried to see her father that way.<p>

Beyond the smell of his skin she had always loved the contours of his cheeks. He worked so hard and was gone so much from their house that she liked to keep an image of him held secure in her heart so that he would never fade.

Her mother had. Her father said it was normal, she'd gotten sick when Stephanie was only six and had died a year later; wasting away from the sickness that everyone knew came from the plant. It wasn't such a surprise that Stephanie couldn't vividly recall her every line and wrinkle and yet she despised that traitorous parts of her mind. She wanted her mom to stay fresh, alive and real as if she weren't buried in the ground but was instead just out there somewhere and would soon return. But no matter how much she dug to bring up an image, just one picture that would let her see her mothers' face, she couldn't do it and she was always afraid the same would happen with her father.

She studied him often. He was thin but there was a vibrancy to his hazel eyes and a burning hunger along his narrow cheeks and worn white skin. She would look at him and then rush to mirrors once he left for work to stare at her own face, marking the turn of her nose, a lift of her lips, anything that wasn't exactly like him so that she could know what he had given to her and what was more like a woman she barely remembered.

As Stephanie clenched her eyes tight all of that came back but then it shifted. Like any dream that starts as a wonder and then meanders down into horror and despair she saw her daddy healthy and alive and then broken and dying. Her mind may not have been ready to let her remember what had happened to her but it seemed more than fine with letting her recall every detail of how he had gotten the sickness as well.

"I'm so sorry," he coughed, the napkin she brought to his lips already stained a white, pinkish, red yet somehow it seemed able to take even more. "This is…I'm just so sorry Steph."

She smiled, the first time she'd done that in a long while. Her sixteenth birthday was two months past, taking place during the heavy days when he swore that he was only tired and it wasn't anything to worry about even though she knew better. He was dying right in front of her and suddenly she felt way too old. She was starting to understand how maybe she could actually reach an age where wanting to be a child again, so scared and waiting for him, would be more normal then the rejection she most often had whenever she realized he still thought of her as only a little girl.

"Daddy…it's…maybe you'll get better," she replied, trying desperately to push the truth far from her sight. Already his absence from the plant had become an issue. She'd put her name in more than once and that seemed to make her father all the sicker. What she had done to get coin drained him worse than the blood he couldn't stop coughing up. "Maybe you'll just…"

He latched onto her wrist, clutching at her with fingers back to the way they had been when he was healthy. Suddenly he was filled with vigor as he locked eyes with her and drew her close.

"No," he said, "this is it. You have to be ready Stephanie."

"Steph," she replied, "you always…"

"Not now," he smiled, "now you're my beautiful Stella Cotton, too young to be allowed into the plant yet not too young to put your name into the games more than once. My Stephanie…oh baby…this life is too tough and so quick. I was going to teach you everything, how to work the machines like I do, how to cook potatoes so they don't always taste so bad…I was…I was going to make sure you would never have to put your name into the games more than once but…but soon it will be up to you. You'll have a home, you'll always have a place to rest your head but for food and clothes you'll need more coin and you'll do it. I don't want you to…I want to live and keep you out for as long as possible but I can't…baby I can't do it and you'll need to take the risk.

"Put your name as much as you can. Just do it because I need you to promise me something. Just promise that if they choose you you'll use your head. You fight, you be smart, be quick as a fox and you come home! Just get back here where everything will be fine! Can you promise me that?"

She had. She remembered now, she remembered everything, the arena, the games, how her name was chosen just as her father had warned since she'd done exactly as he had said. Once he was gone she put herself in as much as she could. It was just twice but somehow that second slip seemed far worse for her than anyone who was allowed to do it three or four times. It was the way luck went, as soon as it began to roll downhill it just picked up steam and it hadn't even been that much of a surprise when her Poly gave her hand a squeeze and the crowd merely looked at her with sympathy. They might not have said it but many had thought that her being in the games was a forgone conclusion.

She opened her eyes. She had it now, all the pieces falling into place. How the games had begun and how she had run, how the night had gained an icy chill that had seeped into her bones. The fire was supposed to be something quick, she had waited so long, until her fingers were frozen digits unable to bend, until her legs could barely keep her upright, and though she knew it wasn't smart (such a betrayal of her promise) she told herself again and again it would only be for a moment.

But she went to sleep. She had finally become like Martin, safe and warm in her cowardice except there was no table to give her even more protection from the rain. She woke when they came, had begged them to stop, but one large boy with a sword hit her, the thick metal of the hilt he held cracking her skull as she screamed and screamed. But that had just made them laugh.

She was prepared for pain beyond anything she could endure yet then another kid, a sweet kid, one who could lift weights so well, told them to end it and everyone had listened. He talked so convincingly that though her head spun and felt off kilter, Stephanie too probably would have done anything he asked. She didn't even mind it when the one with the sword jammed it deep into her stomach. Agony, intense and alive, rose up all along her body but it was what the sweet kid had said to do and who could refuse him.

"Daddy I…I broke my promise," Stephanie sobbed as she stared at her father. He was as she remembered, thin yet strong, alive without a trace of sickness in his face. "I'm…I'm sorry."

There was someone behind him. She could just make out the image of a boy (maybe the sweet one) in the last remaining glimmers of the fire that had killed her. He got closer and closer, finally knelling down and cupping her head in his lap as her father reached out and began to stroke her hair.

His fingers where a welcome warmth in the cold night and she enjoyed them for a moment as she stared at the boy. He too was running a hand through her matted locks, he and her father sometimes blurring together as Stephanie smiled up at them both.

But the boy also held a knife, a blade of sharpest silver that soon took all of Stephanie's attention. She kept waiting for it to snake out and bring her pain but when the boy lowered it and returned her smile she had no idea what would happen next. Why was he acting so different from the rest?

"Oh Stephanie…my Stephanie," her father said, leaning down to whisper in her ear, "can you move?"

"Hurts…I…I wasn't smart."

He kept brushing her hair. She had no idea how she could feel him but his hard skin was as comforting as the boy's smile. Her pain began to ebb further away.

"It's not…oh Stephanie, it's not your fault," her father replied, "I…I shouldn't have made you promise anything. I just…I just wanted you to get home where you would be safe and I…I didn't understand the truth."

"What…what truth?"

"That life is quick, so quick, and home is never the place where you rest your head. It is simply wherever your loved ones are. Home is with me and your mom."

"Mom," Stephanie sighed, the boy leaning down as well. She almost thought he too might whisper something. "I'll get to see mom?"

"She's waiting," her father replied, "she's been waiting so long to just…to just say hello."

His name was Peeta. She didn't know where it came from but suddenly the boy had a name, his knife not nearly as scary as the other ones sword had been. Even when he placed it under her chin she couldn't find it in herself to fear it.

"I'm…I have to," Peeta said. But then he paused yet again, his fingers running one last time through her hair as the knife against her throat was lifted up. She had one more second to enjoy a bit of warmth. "I'll…I'll make it quick."

Her father had risen to his feet, his arm outstretched as she stared up at him. "Almost there, Stephanie, just a second longer,"

"Call me," Stephanie whispered. "Call me Steph…please."

"I will," Peeta replied as her father did the same, their voices overlapping to become one. "Goodbye, Steph."

"Hello," Stephanie sighed, the knife back and already moving, her last breath slipping past her lips as she reached up and grabbed her fathers' hand.


End file.
